Word.ws English Dictionary

corps-a-corps

corps-a-corps noun: the action of two fencers coming into physical contact with one another with any portion of their bodies or hilts.

Noun

corps-a-corps

  1. The action of two fencers coming into physical contact with one another with any portion of their bodies or hilts.

Origin of corps-a-corps

Unadapted borrowing from French corps-à-corps (literally “body to body”). Compare corps, corpse, corpus.

Questions about corps-a-corps

What does corps-a-corps mean?
Corps-a-corps means the action of two fencers coming into physical contact with one another with any portion of their bodies or hilts.
What part of speech is corps-a-corps?
Corps-a-corps is a noun.

Words near corps-a-corps in the dictionary

  1. corps
  2. corps d'armée
  3. corps de ballet
  4. corps de garde
  5. corps de logis
  6. corps-a-corps
  7. corps.
  8. corpse
  9. corpse camp
  10. corpse camped
  11. corpse camper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: corps-a-corps (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “corps-a-corps.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/corps-a-corps. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.